Who needs a Palestinian state?

 

by Sultan Knish

 

Everyone, and by "everyone" I mean the denizens of Washington D.C.'s and Brussel's government buildings, agrees that we need a Palestinian state. Chiming in with their "Yes" votes are the dictators of a dozen Arab states who agree that the only thing that will fix the region is adding another Arab dictatorship to the place, and subtracting the region's one democracy.

But who actually needs a Palestinian state? Or rather a second Palestinian state. The first Palestinian state, commonly called Jordan, was carved out of the Palestine Mandate and equipped with a refugee Saudi royal family. Today Jordan exists mainly under the protection of the US and Israel, and its population of Palestinian Arabs is a seething mass of Muslim extremists currently enjoying a 30 percent unemployment rate, where the majority of the population supports Osama Bin Laden, at a higher percentage rate than even Pakistan.

But Jordan is practically heaven on earth compared to the Second Palestinian State that the Obama Administration is to determined to inflict on Israel.

Currently ruled by mutually hostile armed gangs loyal to either the Fatah or Hamas terrorist groups, Palestine 2.0 has already been a failed state for over a decade. Every attempt at foreign investment has failed. The ruins of industrial zones, greenhouses and even a casino, dot the landscape. Palestinian Arab Christians from overseas who returned to build up the economy fled quickly in the face of relentless shakedowns, kidnappings and militia gangs masquerading as law enforcement.

The vast majority of Palestinian Arabs work for two employers. The UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority... which in turn is funded by foreign donors. Work for the Palestinian Authority usually means belonging to a militia gang which is loyal to a particular figure in the PA leadership, who in turn passes that loyalty on to the current "government". With little to do, the gangs spend their free time dealing drugs, carrying out terrorist attacks and collecting protection money from their town's remaining stores.

For 17 years, Israel, America and just about every interested party has tried to build a Palestinian state. They provided weapons and training to build a modern Palestinian police force. They sent advisers and fortunes in economic aid, thousands per Palestinian Arab. They created industrial zones and transferred greenhouses. Billions in funds from the EU, America and various do-gooders were swallowed up to fund the lavish lifestyles of Arafat and his henchmen.

To those who argue that a Palestinian State will build regional stability, the rational person must ask, how in the world has any of this contributed to regional stability?

Year after year, the proposed Palestinian State has become a worse place. Given autonomy, its own military, political, legal and economic system — "Palestine" has made the region more unstable than ever. Terrorism has increased. Violence has increased. General instability has increased. Proposing that more of this will stabilize the region is akin to a man setting fire to one piece of furniture after another in his living room, and claiming that when the entire room is on fire, it will be a safe place to live.

So I ask again, who needs a Palestinian state? If the Palestinian Arabs really wanted a state (a second state) in Gaza, the West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem, they could have had it before 1967, when those territories were in Arab hands. Instead the PLO back then called for no Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel. As Clinton discovered to his chagrin at the end of his term, Arafat did not actually want a state and was not interested in accepting an Israeli offer that gave him 99 percent of what he wanted. Is it really any surprise that Hamas today follows the same exact party line?

And really why would they want a Palestinian state? If a state was actually created, the UNRWA would have to close up shop. A Palestinian state could no longer rely on foreign donors to fund the hundred thousand or so armed gangsters who form its "government" and its only real form of employment. And the same Muslim states who pass along "charity" to help fund the "martyr operations" that are behind much of the local terrorism would turn elsewhere.

Instead for 17 years the same tired opera has been playing in the region's one theater. First the world's statesmen and diplomats descend on Israel, crying that the only hope for the region's stability is a Palestinian state. Next the Israeli diplomats arrive with a generous territorial offer, counterbalanced by a second clause that asks that there be no more terrorism. That second clause is immediately ignored by everyone in the room.

Next the Palestinian Authority diplomats arrive demanding twice as much land, no more border security preventing terrorists from entering Israel, half of Israel's capital, contiguous borders that would cut Israel in half, the ethnic cleansing of all Jews from territories claimed by them... and finally the return of the "refugees", which is code for unlimited immigration from their proposed Palestinian State into Israel.

The Israelis make a counteroffer. The statesmen and diplomats accuse Israel of rejecting peace. The Palestinian Arabs begin carrying out terrorist attacks again (assuming they even bothered to stop during the negotiations). Israel bombs the terrorists. The statesmen and diplomats accuse Israel of perpetuating the cycle of violence, and urge everyone to go back to the negotiating table. By the time that happens a year later, the Palestinian Arabs have doubled their demands, and the whole "Cycle of Peacemaking" repeats itself all over again.

The "not so secret" secret here is that the Palestinian Arabs do not want a state or peace. 17 years of running the Palestinian Authority into the ground have shown how utterly incapable Fatah and Hamas are of running anything, besides armed gangs, mosques and occasional social services to their loyalist families... all funded from abroad.

The Palestinian ruling powers derive their authority from two forces

1. The Muslim desire to destroy Israel as an infidel state whose existence contradicts Islam. This keeps the money and arms flowing in to the different factions, as well as provides popular support by Arabs. Which is why no Palestinian leader will recognize and accept the existence of Israel. It is why Arafat negotiated out of one side of his mouth and ordered terrorist attacks out of the other. It is why after his death. his Fatah movement has lost credibility and popular support to Hamas due to its increasing inability to kill Israelis.
2. Western and Israel diplomats who keep trying to create a Palestinian state out of the bizarre notion that such a state would bring the terrorism to an end. Like all Dhimmi behaviors in regard to Islam, they ignore the fact that the short term goal of terrorism is terrorism. The long term goal of terrorism is to conquer and hold the territory of the terrorized. There is no room for the middle ground of compromise in that equation. It's either absolute power, or nothing at all.

Terrorism is practiced by armed gangs and movements who derive their power and support from being terrorists. Proposing that they stop being terrorists is a lot like walking into GM and suggesting that instead of making cars, they should make donuts and hand them out for free, so everyone will be happy.

Palestinian nationalism has always been a crock, a transparently phony justification for terrorism that has always come before nationalism. Palestine was never a country or a state. It was the name given by the Roman occupation forces to a region they were administering, a region far larger than modern day Israel. There was never an Arab Palestinian king or ruler until Arafat. There was never a separate country called Palestine. The Post WW1 Palestine Mandate in the 20th century was used to create two states, an Arab state, Jordan, and a smaller state, Israel.

Now the drive is on to create Palestine 2.0, despite the obvious fact that the Palestinian Arabs have done everything possible to prevent it from coming into being. Nearly two decades of terrorism have turned the endless rounds of peace negotiations into a joke. Half the Palestinian Authority is now ruled by the Iranian backed Hamas terrorist group, which insists it will never recognize or accept permanent peace with Israel. A state of affairs that never would have come into being, had Israel not completely withdrawn from Gaza in the first place.

So once again, who wants or needs a Palestinian state?

Israel did not come into being out of pity for the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust. Nor did it come into being thanks to US aid or support. Both of those however are common myths.

The State of Israel was in place well before the Holocaust, in the form of an embryonic country of farmers who drained the swamps, businessmen who set up shops, journalists who printed newspapers, and soldiers who trained to protect and defend their homeland. When the UN recognized Israel, it simply accepted the fait accompli that Israel existed and was capable of taking care of itself, which it proved by fighting the armies of the surrounding Arab nations to a standstill. It did it without US military aid, which only came into the picture much later with the Kennedy administration. It did it, because the people of Israel genuinely wanted their own state and worked to make it happen.

By 1942, 17 years after the Palestine Mandate, the Jews of Israel had built a thriving country, from power generators to vast stretches of farmland, from a revived language to the Technion, created in 1924, which is considered one of the world's leading electrical engineering and computer science schools in the world. 17 years after Oslo, the Palestinian Arabs have built nothing but death and destruction. Worse yet they've taken everything that was given to them and turned it into either a weapon or a bribe. By every standard, they have failed to show their ability to build or run a functioning state. Not even the most liberally minded thinker can point to anything in the Palestinian Authority leadership that suggests that they're capable of running a functional state. Which is why that same species will naturally duck the question and begin blaming Israel instead.

And that highlights the real issue. The only reason for creating Palestine 2.0 is the destruction of Israel. It will not bring regional stability. It will not even bring local stability. It cannot even function unless its entire workforce is funded from abroad. It cannot even stop engaging in terrorism.

Palestine 2.0 is a Frankenstein's monster, with body parts from Shiite, Sunni and Marxist terrorists. It only knows how to do one thing and one thing alone, kill. It is not a natural creature, because no Palestinian state ever existed throughout history. It is an artificial state whose existence has only one purpose. The destruction of Israel.

And that answers our question at last. Who needs a Palestinian state? Someone who is either ignorant, foolish or needs to destroy Israel.

The Two State Solution is not a formula for any kind of stability or end to the violence. It's meant to take the violence to a whole new level. It is a formula for the destruction of Israel. 17 years of peacemaking by Israelis has produced 17 years of terrorism by the Palestinian Arabs. Everything sowed on the Palestinian Authority, from money to guns, from autonomy to infrastructure, have come up as dragon's teeth.

Palestine is not a state. It was never a state. It will never be a state. It is currently ruled by two factions who have both disowned a negotiated Palestinian state in favor of the destruction of Israel. It is not a country, it is a weapon.

Palestine is a gun aimed at the head of Israel with one goal, its destruction. Palestine is a gun aimed at the head of every Jew in the world, legitimizing the worst and ugliest kinds of bigotry. Palestine is an imaginary place given form as a vicious myth brainwashing generation after generation of Jordanian and Egyptian Arabs to call themselves Palestinians and kill and die in the name of perpetuating a second Holocaust, all for the glory of Allah, Mohammed, Marx, not to mention Saddam Hussein, Ahmadinejad, the House of Saud, and every cause and ruler with an interest in toppling Israel into the dust.

Palestine is death. It exists only as a form of living death by a population taught to see themselves as willing martyrs to the bomb belt from birth. It breathes death, it celebrates death, it teaches death and preaches death. It is the final ugly end of the hatred and cruelty bottled up in the Arab and Islamic dictatorships of the region. It is the true face of Islam and its shining reflection in the mirror of the Western press and diplomats is the true measure of their Dhimmism.

The Cult of Death in Palestine and the war against Israel is only a preview for the West of things to come. Palestine is not a place, it is hate and homicide boiled down into myth. Palestine is not only in Israel. It is in Paris and London. It is in Madrid and Detroit. It is in Sydney and Moscow. It is everywhere that the toxic brew of Muslim fanaticism and Arab nationalism flows. Its fla g is the flag of death. Its constitution is a death warrant for every free nation. Its legislature is a smug coven of obese terrorist chieftains sending their followers off to death with the promise of virgin demons fornicating with them in Paradise.

Palestine 2.0 is a monster with only one purpose, to create Holocaust 2.0. That is who needs a Palestinian state. That is why the far left and the far right are both so hellbent on bringing one into being. Accepting the Two State Solution means accepting death. Rejecting it means embracing life.

Sultan Knish

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

From horse's mouth: Christians targeted!

 

by Aaron Klein

Palestinian official says they need to be watched,
prevented from evangelizing, converting Muslims

JERUSALEM – Christians in the Palestinian territories are being "watched," a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority admitted to WND.

"We have been watching this Christian organization and for the moment there is nothing special in their activity," said Adnan Dmeire, spokesman for the PA's security organizations in West Bank.

Dmeire was referring to the Association of the Holy Book, one of the main groups that attends to the needs of Christians in the Palestinian territories. The group has been accused by both the PA and Hamas of carrying out missionary activities. A Bible store the association sponsored in the Gaza Strip – the only Christian bookstore in the territory – was attacked by Islamists several times. The store's owner, Rami Ayyad, was found shot to death in 2007, his body riddled with bullets.

Dmeire was responding to a WND inquiry regarding a Hamas accusation earlier this week that the PA was allowing the Christian association to carry out missionary activity in the West Bank.

 

Christian persecution trend

Christians living in the Palestinian territories have not faired well under PA or Hamas rule.

In 2006, a YMCA in the northern West Bank was attacked. Gunmen destroyed the locks on the YMCA's entrance gates, crushed the gates, then entered the building and set it ablaze. Local fire brigades reportedly rushed to the scene and stopped the blaze before it spread to neighboring buildings. The attack occurred just after a PA-linked preacher accused the YMCA of missionary activity.

Following the YMCA attack, one Christian leader, an aide to Jerusalem's Latin Patriarch Michel Sabah who asked his name be withheld for fear of Muslim retaliation, called the rampage part of a general trend of Christian persecution in Palestinian areas.

"It's been happening all over the West Bank and Gaza," said the aide.

There have been rampant reports of abuses and persecution in several West Bank towns taken over by the PA.

Anti-Christian riots have been reported in Ramallah, Nazareth and surrounding villages as well as in towns in Gaza, where Christians have been targeted in scores of attacks, some deadly. In Bethlehem, local Christians have long complained of anti-Christian violence. The city's Christian population, once 90 percent, declined drastically since the PA took control in December 1995. Christians now make up less than 25 percent of Bethlehem, according to Israeli surveys.

Christian leaders and residents in Bethlehem told WND they face an atmosphere of regular hostility. They said Palestinian armed groups stir tension by holding militant demonstrations and marches in the streets. They spoke of instances in which Christian shopkeepers' stores were ransacked and Christian homes attacked. One of the most urgent problems involves the unilateral confiscation of Christian property by local Islamists.

"It is a regular phenomenon in Bethlehem," Samir Qumsiyeh, a Bethlehem Christian leader and owner of the Beit Sahour-based private Al-Mahd (Nativity) TV station, told WND. "They go to a poor Christian person with a forged power of attorney document, then they say we have papers proving you're living on our land. If you confront them, many times the Christian is beaten. You can't do anything about it. The Christian loses, and he runs away."

In the Gaza Strip, Christians fare worse under Hamas rule. The Islamist group took over the territory in 2007. About 3,000 Christians live in the Gaza Strip, which has a population of over 1 million.

In December, Christian leaders in Gaza told WND they held only small, quiet Christmas celebrations after local leaders received warnings from Muslim groups against any public display of Christianity during the holiday season. Hamas claimed the Christian celebrations were muted to protest what it said was an Israeli siege of the coastal Gaza Strip.

Since Hamas' rise to power, Christian in Gaza repeatedly have been targeted. Jihadia Salafiya, an Islamist outreach group with a so-called military wing, is suspected of many of the Islamist attacks, such as a May 2007 shooting against a United Nations school in Gaza after it allowed boys and girls to participate in the same sporting event. One person was killed in the attack.

In the case of Ayyad, the bible store owner, WND quoted witnesses stating he was publicly tortured a few blocks from his store before he was shot to death. The witnesses said they saw three armed men, two of whom were wearing masks, beat Ayyad repeatedly with clubs and the butts of their guns while they accused him of attempting to spread Christianity in Gaza. The witnesses said that after sustaining the beating, Ayyad was shot by all three men.

 

Christians warned: Accept Islamic law

Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadia Salafiya, told WND in an exclusive interview after Hamas first seized Gaza that Christians could continue living safely in the Gaza Strip only if they accepted Islamic law, including a ban on alcohol and on women roaming publicly without proper head coverings.

"[Now that Hamas is in power,] the situation has changed 180 degrees in Gaza," said Abu Saqer, speaking from Gaza.

"Jihadia Salafiya and other Islamic movements will ensure Christian schools and institutions show publicly what they are teaching to be sure they are not carrying out missionary activity. No more alcohol on the streets. All women, including non-Muslims, need to understand they must be covered at all times while in public," he said.

"Also the activities of Internet cafes, pool halls and bars must be stopped," said Abu Saqer. "If it goes on, we'll attack these things very harshly."

Abu Saqer accused the leadership of the Gaza Christian community of "proselytizing and trying to convert Muslims with funding from American evangelicals."

"This missionary activity is endangering the entire Christian community in Gaza," he said.

Abu Saqer claimed there was "no need" for the thousands of Christians in Gaza to maintain a large number of institutions in the territory.

He said Hamas "must work to impose an Islamic rule or it will lose the authority it has and the will of the people."

 

Aaron Klein

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Strip away the smiles from the Obama-Bibi press conference and we are Left with obsessive, delusional behavior.

 

by Caroline B. Glick

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit with US President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday was baptism of fire for Israel's new premier. What emerged from the meeting is that Obama's priorities regarding Iran, Israel and the Arab world are diametrically opposed to Israel's priorities. During his ad-hoc press conference with Netanyahu, Obama made clear that he will not lift a finger to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And acting as Obama's surrogate, for the past two weeks CIA Director Leon Panetta has made clear that Obama expects Israel to also sit on its thumbs as Iran develops the means to destroy it.

Obama showed his hand on Iran in three ways. First, he set a non-binding timetable of seven months for his policy of appeasement and engagement of the ayatollahs to work. That policy, he explained will only be implemented after next month's Iranian presidential elections. And those direct US-Iranian talks must be given at least six months to show results before they can be assessed as successful or failed.

But Israel's military intelligence has assessed that six months may be too long to wait. By the end of the year, Iran's nuclear program may be unstoppable. And Iran's successful test of its solid fuel Sejil-2 missile with a two thousand kilometer range on Wednesday merely served to show the urgency of the situation. Obviously the mullahs are not waiting for Obama to convince them of the error of their ways.

Beyond the fact that Obama's nonbinding timeline is too long, there is his "or else." Obama made clear that in the event that in December or January he concludes that the Iranians are not negotiating in good faith, the most radical step he will be willing to take will be to consider escalating international sanctions against Teheran. In the meantime, at his urging, Congressman Howard Berman, Chairman of the House International Affairs Committee has tabled a bill requiring sanctions against oil companies that export refined fuel into Iran.

Finally there was Obama's contention that the best way for the US to convince Iran to give up its nuclear program is by convincing Israel to give away more land to the Palestinians. As Obama put it, "To the extent that we can make peace with the Palestinians -- between the Palestinians and the Israelis, then I actually think it strengthens our hand in the international community in dealing with a potential Iranian threat."

This statement encapsulates the basic lack of seriousness and fundamental mendacity of Obama's approach to "dealing with a potential Iranian threat." Iran has made clear that it wants Israel destroyed. The mullahs don't care how big Israel is. Their missiles are pointing at Tel Aviv not Beit El.

As for the international community, the Russians and Chinese have not been assisting Iran's nuclear and missile programs for the past fifteen years because there is no Palestinian state. They have been assisting Iran because they think a strong Iran weakens the US. And they are right.

The Arab states, for their part are already openly siding with Israel against Iran. The establishment of a Palestinian state will not make their support for action to prevent Iran from acquiring the means to dominate the region any more profound.

On the face of it, Obama's obsessive push for a Palestinian state makes little sense. The Palestinians are hopelessly divided. It is not simply that Hamas rules the Gaza Strip and Fatah controls Judea and Samaria. Fatah itself is riven by division. Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's appointment of the new PA government under Salam Fayyad was overwhelmingly rejected by Fatah leaders. Quite simply, today there is no coherent Palestinian leadership that is either willing or capable of reaching an accord with Israel.

And as for the prospects for peace itself, given that there is little distinction between the anti-Semitic bilge broadcast daily in Gaza by Hamas-controlled media, and the anti-Semitic bilge broadcast daily in Judea and Samaria by the Fatah/Abbas/Fayyad-controlled media, those prospects aren't looking particularly attractive. That across-the-board anti-Semitic incitement has engendered the current situation where Hamas and Fatah members and supporters are firmly united in their desire to see Israel destroyed. This was made clear on Thursday morning when a Fatah policeman in Kalkilya used his US-provided rifle to open fire on IDF forces engaged in a counter-terror operation in the city.

Given that the establishment of a Palestinian state will have no impact on Iran's nuclear program, and in light of the fact that under the present circumstances any Palestinian state will be at war against Israel, and assuming that Obama is not completely ignorant of the situation on the ground, there is only one reasonable explanation for Obama's urgent desire to force Israel support the creation of a Palestinian state and work for its establishment by expelling hundreds of thousands of Israelis from their homes. Quite simply, it is a way to divert attention away from Obama's acquiescence to Iran's nuclear aspirations.

By making the achievement of the unachievable goal of making peace between Israel and the Palestinians through the establishment of a Palestinian terror state the centerpiece of his Middle East agenda, Obama is able to cast Israel as the region's villain. This aim is reflected in the administration's intensifying pressure on Israel to destroy Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. In portraying Jews who live in mobile homes on barren hilltops in Judea and Samaria -- rather than Iranian mullahs who test ballistic missile while enriching uranium and inciting genocide -- as the greatest obstacle to peace, the Obama administration not only seeks to deflect attention away from its refusal to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is also setting Israel up as the fall guy who it will blamed after Iran emerges as a nuclear power.

Obama's intention to unveil his Middle East peace plan in the course of his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4, like his decision to opt out of visiting Israel in favor of visiting a Nazi death camp, make clear that he does not perceive Israel as either a vital ally or even as a partner in the peace process he wishes to initiate. Israeli officials were not consulted about his plan. Then too, from the emerging contours of his plan, it is clear that he will be offering something that no Israeli government can accept.

According to media reports, Obama's plan will require Israel to withdraw its citizens and its military to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines. It will provide for the free immigration of millions of Israel-hating Arabs to the Palestinian state. And it seeks to represent all of this as in accord with Israel's interests by claiming that after Israel renders itself indefensible, all 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (including Iran) will "normalize" their relations with Israel. In short, Obama is using his peace plan to castigate the Netanyahu government as the chief destabilizing force in the region.

During his meeting with Obama, Netanyahu succeeded in evading the policy traps Obama set for him. Netanyahu reserved Israel's right to act independently against Iran and he conceded nothing substantive on the Palestinian issue. While itself no small achievement, Netanyahu's successful deflection of Obama's provocations are not a sustainable strategy. Already on Tuesday the administration began coercing Israel to toe its line on Iran and the Palestinians by engaging it in joint "working groups." Then too, the government's destruction of an outpost community in Judea on Thursday was perceived as Israeli buckling to US pressure. And it doubtlessly raised expectations for further expulsions in the near future.

So what must Netanyahu do? What would a strategy to contain the Obama administration's pressure and maintain international attention on Iran look like?

Under the present circumstances, the Netanyahu government's best bet is to introduce its own peace plan to mitigate the impact of Obama's plan. To blunt the impact of Obama's speech in Cairo, Netanyahu should present his peace plan before June 4.

Such a plan should contain three stages. First, in light of the Arab world's apparent willingness to engage with Israel, Netanyahu should call for the opening of direct talks between Israel and the Arab League or Israel and the OIC regarding the immediate normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab-Islamic world. Both Obama and Jordan's King Abdullah claim that such normalization is in the offing. Israel should insist that it begin without delay.

This of course is necessary for peace to emerge with the Palestinians. As we saw at Camp David in 2000, the only way that Palestinian leaders will feel comfortable making peace with Israel is if the Arab world first demonstrates its acceptance of the Jewish state as a permanent feature on the Middle East's landscape. Claims that such an Israeli demand is a mere tactic for buying time can be easily brushed off. Given Jordanian and American claims that the Arab world is willing to accept Israel, once negotiations begin, this stage could be completed in a matter of months.

The second stage of the Israeli peace plan would involve Israel and the Arab world agreeing and beginning to implement a joint program for combating terrorism. This program would involve destroying terror networks, cutting off funding for terror networks, and agreeing to arrest terrorists and extradite them to the Hague or the US for trial. It should be abundantly clear to all governments in the region that there can be no long term regional peace or stability for as long as terrorists bent on destroying Israel and overthrowing moderate Arab regimes are allowed to operate. So making the implementation of such a join program a precondition for further progress shouldn't pose an obstacle to peace. Indeed, there is no reason for it to even be perceived as particularly controversial.

The final stage of the Israeli peace plan should be the negotiation of a final status accord with the Palestinians. Only after the Arab world has accepted Israel, and only after it has agreed to join Israel in achieving the common goal of a terror-free Middle East can there be any chance that the Palestinians will feel comfortable and free to peacefully coexist with Israel. And Israel, of course, will feel much more confident about living at peace with the Palestinians after the Arab world demonstrates its good faith and friendship to the Jewish state and its people.

Were Netanyahu to offer this plan in the next two weeks, he would be able to elude Obama's trap on June 4 by proposing to discuss both plans with the Arab League. In so doing, he would be able to continue to make the case that Iran is the gravest danger to the region without being demonized as a destabilizing force and an enemy of peace.

Whether Netanyahu advances such a peace plan or not, what became obvious this week is that his greatest challenges in office will be to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons while preventing the Obama administration from blaming Israel for the absence of peace.

 

Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

The “Two States Solution”

 

by Raphael Israeli

 

As a rule, we talk about establishing a state for a nation which needs and deserves it, but did not reach that goal. Providing that need, it is thought, would bring peace and quiet to everyone's satisfaction. However, in the case of Israel and the Palestinians, where this formula has grown so fashionable that everyone reiterates it like a ritual, the essential components of this issue are missing, therefore no remedy can be provided by it. For not only are there already more than two states for two nations, geared to respond to the national needs of both Jews and Arabs, but it turns out that the problem is not the existence of two states, or the need thereto, but the necessity to open one's eyes in the face of reality and to call a spade a spade.

 

            Before anything else, we must revert to the grand formula of the Arab-Israeli conflict, instead of confining it to the "Israeli-Palestinian dispute", in order to realize that countries who have no territorial claims on Israel also refuse to recognize it, despite the fact that they  are independent and sovereign states. So, their rejection of Israel is not because it does not recognize them, but because they refuse to accept Israel as part of the Middle East. They claim that their recognition depends on a settlement with the Palestinians, but since the latter reaffirm that they would never recognize a Jewish state, a recognition of Israel is not in the offing. Could Israel demand from the Arabs to sever their ties with Arabism as a condition for recognizing them? Equally, short of an all-Arab recognition of Israel's Jewishness, there can be no settlement of the problem.

 

            States are born to provide security for their citizens, to cultivate their specific culture and to protect their interests. As long as these goals are fulfilled, it matters little what the country is called. Had a Jewish state been established in Uganda or Birobijan, for example, no one would have demanded the establishment of another Jewish state as the prerequisite for resolving the Jewish problem. These rules do not seem to apply to the Palestinians, however. They have founded a state where they constitute the majority of the citizenry, called Jordan, but they pursue the claim and strive for a second Palestinian state. Just to realize the vanity of this argument, one has to reckon that when  a second Palestinian state was born in Gaza two years ago, we were told that it is Hamastan, therefore the birth  of another Palestinian state was as needed as ever. Well, one is Jordan, the other is Hamastan, and how about the fact that both are populated by Palestinians? Would anyone imagine that Israel could demand one Jewish state for Likud and another for the Labor Party, and continue to claim its right to a third Jewish state?

 

            States are born also as a result of a social contract between its citizens. But in the Arab world, states remain atomized, ruled by tyrants and plagued by tribal, religious and political divisions, because they could not agree on such a social contract. The Palestinians too have failed to attain such a basic common denominator of nationhood. Groups shoot and kill each other, chaos reigns in the territories they populate, if Israel does not establish order. They fight for power legitimacy with the force of arms, they are unable to transfer power smoothly to the winner in their "elections", and no civilized dialogue is pursued between rival groups. So, for those who clamor for the two state solution to accommodate two nations, we have to ask: what two people? The Israelis who already have an orderly and recognized state, and the Palestinians who strive for a second or third state, or the Fatah and Hamas adepts, who cannot decide who represents the Palestinians, and in fact have embraced the formula of "two states to two parties", instead of the two nations that have been targeted for a solution?

 

            Thus, it is not two states for two nations that we need, for there exist already three  states for two nations, and certainly not  a third Palestinian state, which would encourage the Arabs of Israel to demand a fourth one in the Galilee and the Negev'. What is direly needed is the assembly of the Palestinian people (namely Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, Israel and the refugee camps in the Diaspora) under one roof, to enable it to settle its internal dissent and decide who and how it can be represented. Such a development, which might generate a big Palestinian state, and come to encompass most of scattered people who identify as Palestinians, will alone guarantee the founding, and continued existence, of one Palestinian entity. The second state, Israel, does not need to be established, since it already exists and flourishes. It's good neighborly relations with a Palestine which is at peace within itself, is all we need for peace and tranquility in the Middle East.

 

 

Raphael Israeli is a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

A two-state peace isn't the Arab goal.

by Jeff Jacoby

Who favors a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict?

President Obama does, of course, as he made clear in welcoming Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House on Monday. So does former President George W. Bush, who began advocating Palestinian statehood in 2002 and continued until his final days in office

. The Democratic Party's national platform endorses a two-state solution; the Republican platform does, too. The UN Security Council unanimously reaffirmed its support a few days ago. The European Union is strongly in favor as well — so strongly that the EU's foreign-policy chief, Javier Solana, has been warning Israel that its relations with Europe "will be very, very different" if it drops the two-state ball.

Pope Benedict XVI called for a Palestinian state during his recent visit to the Holy Land, thereby aligning himself — on this issue, at least — with the editorial boards of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. And, for that matter, with most Israelis. A new poll shows 58 percent of the Israeli public backing a two-state solution; prominent supporters include Netanyahu's three predecessors — former prime ministers Ehud Olmert, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Barak — as well as president Shimon Peres.

The consensus, it would seem, is overwhelming. As Henri Guaino, a senior adviser to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, put it in speaking to reporters on Sunday: "Everyone wants peace. The whole world wants a Palestinian state."

It isn't going to happen.

International consensus or no, the two-state solution is a chimera. Peace will not be achieved by granting sovereignty to the Palestinians, because Palestinian sovereignty has never been the Arabs' goal. Time and time again, a two-state solution has been proposed. Time and time again, the Arabs have turned it down.

In 1936, when Palestine was still under British rule, a royal commission headed by Lord Peel was sent to investigate the steadily worsening Arab violence. After a detailed inquiry, the Peel Commission concluded that "an irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country." It recommended a two-state solution — a partition of the land into separate Arab and Jewish states. "Partition offers a chance of ultimate peace," the commission reported. "No other plan does."

But the Arab leaders, more intent on preventing Jewish sovereignty in Palestine than in achieving a state for themselves, rejected the Peel plan out of hand. The foremost Palestinian leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini, actively supported the Nazi regime in Germany. In return, Husseini wrote in his memoirs, Hitler promised him "a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world."

In 1947, the Palestinians were again presented with a two-state proposal. Again they spurned it. Like the Peel Commission, the United Nations concluded that only a division of the land into adjacent states, one Arab and one Jewish, could put an end to the conflict. On Nov. 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly debated — and by a vote of 33-13 adopted — Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine on the basis of population. Had the Arabs accepted the UN decision, the Palestinian state that "the whole world wants" would today be 61 years old. Instead, the Arab League vowed to block Jewish sovereignty by waging "a war of extermination and a momentous massacre."

Over and over this pattern has been repeated. Following its stunning victory in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel offered to exchange the land it had won for permanent peace with its neighbors. From their summit in Khartoum came the Arabs' notorious response: "No peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel."

At Camp David in 2000, Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians virtually everything they claimed to be seeking — a sovereign state with its capital in East Jerusalem, 97 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, tens of billions of dollars in "compensation" for the plight of Palestinian refugees. Yasser Arafat refused the offer, and launched the bloodiest wave of terrorism in Israel's history.

To this day, the charters of Hamas and Fatah, the two main Palestinian factions, call for Israel's liquidation. "The whole world" may want peace and a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians want something very different. Until that changes, there is no two-state solution.

Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist.

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Why do we never hear calls for Hamas leaders to be charged with war crimes?

 

 

Why, for example, do we hear no calls for human rights investigations into Hamas gunmen using Palestinian children as human shields? Why so few stories on the reports of Hamas assassins going to hospitals to hunt down their fellow Palestinians? And where are the international human rights groups demanding that Hamas stop blurring the most fundamental line in warfare: the distinction between civilian and combatant? Did the West surrender to Islam or does anti-Semitism prevail over justice? Discover the The Circle Of Life - Gaza / Israel

 

Just open :

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmfOLl92MrQ

Obama's latest calculated move against the Jewish State.

 

by Anne Bayefsky

 

In advance of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the United States today, President Obama unveiled a new strategy for throwing Israel to the wolves. It takes the form of enthusiasm for the United Nations and international interlopers of all kinds. Instead of ensuring strong American control over the course of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations or the Arab-Israeli peace process, the Obama administration is busy inserting an international mob between the U.S. and Israel. The thinking goes: If Israel doesn't fall into an American line, Obama will step out of the way, claim his hands are tied, and let the U.N. and other international gangsters have at their prey.

It began this past Monday with the adoption of a so-called presidential statement by the U.N. Security Council. Such statements are not law, but they must be adopted unanimously — meaning that U.S. approval was essential and at any time Obama could have stopped its adoption. Instead, he agreed to this: "The Security Council supports the proposal of the Russian Federation to convene, in consultation with the Quartet and the parties, an international conference on the Middle East peace process in Moscow in 2009."

This move is several steps beyond what the Bush administration did in approving Security Council resolutions in December and January — which said only that "The Security Council welcomes the Quartet's consideration, in consultation with the parties, of an international meeting in Moscow in 2009." Apparently Obama prefers a playing field with 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, 22 members of the Arab League — most of whom don't recognize the right of Israel to exist — and one Jewish state. A great idea — if the purpose is to ensure Israel comes begging for American protection.

The U.N. presidential statement also makes laudatory references to another third-party venture, the 2002 Arab "Peace" Initiative. That's a Saudi plan to force Israel to retreat to indefensible borders in advance of what most Arab states still believe will be a final putsch down the road. America's U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, announced to the Security Council that "we intend to integrate the Arab Peace Initiative into our own approach."

Make no mistake: This U.N. move, made with U.S. approval, sets America on a well-calculated collision course with Israel. U.S. collusion on this presidential statement was directly at odds with Israel's wishes and well-founded concerns about the U.N.'s bona fides on anything related to Israel. Israeli U.N. ambassador Gabriella Shalev issued a statement of Israel's position: "Israel does not believe that the involvement of the Security Council contributes to the political process in the Middle East. This process should be bilateral and left to the parties themselves. Furthermore, the timing of this Security Council meeting is inappropriate as the Israeli government is in the midst of conducting a policy review, prior to next week's visit by Prime Minister Netanyahu to the United States…Israel shared its position with members of the Security Council."

By contrast, Rice told reporters: "We had a very useful and constructive meeting thus far of the Council. We welcome Foreign Minister Lavrov's initiative to convene the Council, and we're very pleased with the constructive and comprehensive statement that will be issued by the president of the Council on the Council's behalf. This was a product of really collaborative, good-faith efforts by all members of the Council, and we're pleased with the outcome."

The Obama administration's total disregard of Israel's obvious interest in keeping the U.N. on the sidelines was striking. Instead of reiterating the obvious — that peace will not come if bigots and autocrats are permitted to ram an international "solution" down the throat of the only democracy at the table — Rice told the Council: "The United States cannot be left to do all the heavy lifting by itself, and other countries …must do all that they can to shore up our common efforts." In a break with decades of U.S. policy, the Obama strategy is to energize a U.N. bad cop so that the U.S. might assume the role of good cop — for a price.

On Tuesday the Obama administration did it again: It ran for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council. As expected, the administration won election to represent the Council's Western European and Others Group — it was a three-state contest for three spaces.

The Council is most famous, not for protecting human rights, but for its obsession with Israel. In its three-year history it has:

 

• adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than condemning the 191 other U.N. members combined;
• entrenched an agenda with only ten items, one permanently reserved for condemning Israel and another for condemning any other U.N. state that might "require the Council's attention";
• held ten regular sessions on human rights, and five special sessions to condemn only Israel;
• insisted on an investigator with an open-ended mandate to condemn Israel, while all other investigators must be regularly renewed;
• spawned constant investigations on Israel, and abolished human-rights investigations (launched by its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights) into Belarus, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Moreover, every morning before the Human Rights Council starts, all states — and even observers like the Palestinians — get together in their regional blocs for an hour to negotiate, share information, and determine positions. All, that is, except Israel. The Western European and Others Group refuses to give Israel full membership. Now the U.S. will be complicit in this injustice.

Joining the Council has one immediate effect on U.S.-Israel relations: It gives the Obama administration a new stick to use against Israel. Having legitimized the forum through its membership and participation, the U.S. can now attempt to extract concessions from Israel in return for American objections to the Council's constant anti-Israel barrage.

Obama administration officials may believe they can put the lid back on Pandora's box after having invited the U.N., Russia, the Arab League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to jump into the process of manufacturing a Palestinian state while Israel is literally under fire. They have badly miscalculated. By making his bed with countries that have no serious interest in democratic values, the president has made our world a much more dangerous place.

Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust

 

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